


The Jailbird Life (or Lack Thereof)

by therisingmoon



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Humor, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therisingmoon/pseuds/therisingmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylar may be locked up in a Primatech prison for the rest of his life, but that doesn't mean he has to stop creating havoc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, this is a bunch of short scenes I wrote about Sylar finding new ways to entertain himself and to annoy the Bennet and Petrelli families, despite being in jail. He comes and goes as he pleases because there is no prison security system that's strong enough to contain him that he hasn't already broken. But at the end of the day, he still goes back because he promised to be a good boy. Sort of.
> 
> This is also largely inspired by [Texts From Primatech](http://textsfromprimatech.tumblr.com/).
> 
> All for fun, no copyright infringement intended. Heroes belongs to Tim Kring.

As far as prison goes, it’s a fucking 5-star hotel. Considering how easy it is for Sylar to break out and leave the place a smoking hole in the ground, he did have to concede that Primatech, or whatever they were calling themselves now, let him have his creature comforts like a shower, his workbench and a bookshelf in his cell. At least he’d have something to do other than sleep or finding new ways to break the security systems out of boredom.

Of course, throughout the whole time of working out the details, he had been sulking in the corner glaring at the lot of them while Noah Bennet pointedly had his gun on the table with the business end aimed right at Sylar’s head. He really didn’t want to be there, but after the events at Central Park, Peter threatened to have Parkman put him a coma again if he didn’t come along nicely to Primatech. Sylar gave Peter his best death glare, scowled, and followed him into the Primatech facility while mentally plotting new ways to make their lives hell. Moreover, he didn’t even get to eat, damn it. Those food stalls in the carnival had looked so good, too.

Bennet had shot him in the head the minute Sylar walked into the conference room. “And hello to you, Noah,” Sylar said as he got up and spat the bullet out, making a mental note to put Bennet right at the top of his shit list. He then looked down on the floor with a frown. “I don’t recall losing that much blood from a head shot.” 

Claire, who was sitting beside her father, just rubbed the bridge of her nose in irritation. “I don’t know why I have to be here,” she complained.

“Well that makes two of us,” Sylar muttered as she flipped him off and he slunk down to the armchair farthest from everyone else and the proceedings of working out how he was going to stay locked up began. When it reached into its second hour of bickering, he couldn’t deal with it anymore. He telekinetically pinned everyone’s heads to the table.

“I don’t give a damn about all this, just give me my workbench and a bookshelf,” Sylar said with a deeply annoyed tone in his voice. “I don’t have to be here for all this.” He then released his hold on them as he skulked out of the conference room. Dumbasses.


	2. Chapter 2

Sylar rubbed the sore spot on his jaw. No one had a sense of humor nowadays. He had thought the gift basket and a rainbow-colored Mr. Muggles was hilarious. Noah Bennet, and especially Claire, didn't. She had spent the last hour screaming bloody murder at him at the top of her lungs and ranting about dogs and soap or whatever. When he rolled his eyes and made a yapping gesture with his hand, Bennet punched him in the face for it.

"It's just food coloring," Sylar said after making sure his jaw was okay and shrugged. "It does come out….eventually."

"Go to hell!" Claire shrieked in frustration and stomped out of his cell. 

Noah shot him a poison look and walked out of the cell to catch up with his daughter. "Watch yourself, Sylar."

"I hear baking soda does the trick!" Sylar called out after their retreating backs before the door closed. He then glanced over to his bookshelf, making a book fly into his hand, and sat back in his bed. As he became engrossed in his novel, the formations of another idea took seed in his mind. The grin on his face spread as the book flew back to its place in his shelf. He then sat down at his desk with a sheet of paper and a pencil as he began to plot out the logistics of his new endeavor. In order to accomplish this, he’s going to have to time another break out to get what he needs, as well as a mental note to get a milkshake when it’s time for him watch it all goes down. The milkshake is the important part. Not enough places make good milkshakes.

If he was going to get another bullet in his head again for this, it might be worth it. 

Maybe he should start keeping the slugs as trophies.


	3. Chapter 3

Peter had been snoring soundly when a hand shook him awake. "GAAAAAAAAAH!” he screamed as he bolted up in bed. As soon as his vision corrected itself in the dark, he glared at Sylar's smirking visage standing at the foot of his bed. 

"THE FUCK WAS THAT FOR?" Peter screamed and angrily pointed to his opened fire escape window. "GET OUT." This only made Sylar chuckle and the shit-eating grin on his face grew wider. That just made Peter only more enraged and he punched Sylar in the face in retaliation. "It's 3 in the fucking morning, you freak!"

Sylar's expression only lit up some more with excitement as he stood his ground. "Yeah, but I have an important question for you, Peter."

"And it couldn't wait until morning?" Peter snarled.

Sylar simply shook his head. "Nope. Has to be in the middle of the night for maximum effect," he replied. "It's not as funny in the daytime." 

Peter glared some more as he sunk his face in his hands in resignation. However, the tone in his voice is more curious than angry. "You're not planning to flip everything just to torment Noah again, are you? It took us two days to rearrange everything in his apartment back to normal."

Sylar grinned. "But it was funny, right?"

"Until he barged into your cell and shot you twice. Claire and I had to help him clean up and rearrange his apartment. I need to sleep, asshole. And frankly, I don't even want to know what you're doing and why you need to tell me at 3 in the morning." Peter glared at him some more. It is either way too early in the morning or way too late at night to deal with Sylar's ideas of entertainment.

Sylar's expression grew more devious. He then reached into his jacket pocket and showed Peter the air horn he'd been carrying. "On a scale of punching me in the face to putting a bullet in my head, how do you feel about an air horn in a certain governor's bathroom?" Peter gaped at him before getting out of bed to find his pants and a jacket. If this is going the way he's thinking, he might as well indulge Sylar and watch.

"All right, you got me," Peter replied as he buckled his pants and slung his jacket on. He followed Sylar out of the fire escape and closed the window. "But just this once and don’t ever show up in the middle of the goddamned night."

Sylar dismissively waved his hand as they climbed down the fire escape and landed in the street. "Can't make any promises, but I felt this had to be shared. You're the only one who understands the beauty of it."

Peter narrows his eyes at Sylar and wordlessly follows him to their destination. It turns out that Sylar is right; there was a sick kind of beauty in Sylar’s stupid stunts that Peter finds himself appreciating in spite of himself. Maybe it’s their shared similarities, their shared history or their shared rivalry or whatever, but in a way, Peter gets it. He’s still annoyed he had to be woken up in the middle of the night to witness it, though. 

The horn goes off as expected with the screams that follow. Peter turns away from Sylar’s mischievous smirk and braces himself against the wall to tamper down the shaking laughing fit that’s desperate to escape. Once he’s calmed down, he punches Sylar in the shoulder as they leave their watch point. 

“I fucking hate you,” Peter finally says after they return to his building. Sylar gives him the one-finger salute before retreating back into the shadows.

The morning papers print an amusing story about the Governor and the mysterious air horn. Peter lets out a tiny smile and arranges to have the newspaper delivered to a prison cell in Primatech.


	4. Chapter 4

Angela looked at her driver with a pointed look as he kept looking away from her and twiddled his fingers. She’ll probably have to fire him and look for new recommendations for a driver. This is the sixth driver this year that she’s gone through; Angela is starting to wonder if there are any competent drivers left in New York or she may have to start to learn how to drive. She continues to level her gaze at Simmons and he’s still fidgeting. “Are you ever going to tell me what is going on before I terminate your employment?”

Simmons blanched and sputtered. “It’s the Bentley, ma’am.”

Angela raises an eyebrow. “And what is the matter with the Bentley?”

The soon-to-be terminated driver swallows thickly. “There’s a…there’s a….” Angela gives him a ‘go on’ gesture with her hand as she takes a sip of tea.

“Ma’am, there’s a pair of rabbits jumping around in the Bentley. And the Bentley is still locked except for a crack in the window.”

Angela stares at him and sets her tea cup down. Perhaps she should give him a little pay bump before terminating his employment; after all, cleaning up after rabbits was certainly not in the job requirements. 

After having Simmons drive her to the café in another car, she’s savoring her meal when Noah Bennet appears in front of her and takes a seat across the table from her. His face is blank and she nods a curt greeting at him.

“Angela.” Noah greets her and peruses the menu the waiter brings him and then places his order. “How have you been today?”

Angela momentarily pauses in her oyster salad and looks pointedly at him before resuming her meal. “As well as I can manage these days,” she replies. “I just had to fire my driver again.” The corners of Noah’s mouth quirk into a smirk before reverting to his blank expression. In all the years he’s been in service to the Company, Angela’s inability to keep a driver was something that he found rather amusing and he would never tell than to anyone. 

“Was it something he did?” he asks as he waits for his meal order. 

“I’m not sure that he did,” Angela replies. “But he was unable to maintain his professional composure. He was terrible at keeping himself from fidgeting. A terrible shame, as he was a very prompt driver and was never lost.”

A glint of a smile crossed Noah’s mouth. “And this is driver number?”

Angela narrowed her eyes as she took a drink. “Six. There is a dire lack of competent drivers in this day and age. He should have been able to speak to me without losing his composure.”

“And what would make him lose his composure?” Noah asked as the waiter brought him his meal and he began to eat. “It can’t be that bad if he was just nervous about telling you.”

Angela paused amidst a bite of food to consider it. “This morning, he found a pair of rabbits jumping around in the Bentley. I raised his severance pay to have him clean it up. ”

Noah Bennet just stared at her, his fork halfway to his mouth. “Rabbits?” He finished his bite and took a drink of water. 

Angela nodded. “I’d like to know who thought to put live animals in a vehicle like that. My driver found them this morning jumping around and ruining the interiors.” She shakes her head as she finishes her meal.

Bennet remains silent for a few more seconds. “I found a living turtle in my car this morning.” Angela stared blankly at him before narrowing her eyes at him. “It was just sitting in my front seat staring at me,” he adds with a resigned shrug. “I dropped him off at animal control.”

She was at a loss for words and simply blinked. The silence lingered in the air as they finished their meals before Angela spoke again. “It seems we both have had a strange morning.” 

“If you're looking to get answers from me, Angela, I’ve got nothing,” Noah said as the waiter brought their checks to them and cleared the table. As he reached for the check plate to separate their checks, a slip of paper fell on the table. He picked it up and as he read the scrawl on it, his expression darkened. 

_Like my presents?_

Angela raised an eyebrow at him, and he wordlessly handed the paper to her. As she read the note, Noah muttered, “Of course, it would be him. Who else would think of something as depraved like that?” She scowled at him and turned to look away from him. As she glanced across the street, her eyes paused at the man leaning against the corner of the building. Sylar met her eyes and smirked as he tipped off a jaunty salute. The action had also caught Noah’s eye as well as his expression grew even darker and he was about two seconds from jumping out of his chair. Sylar smiled as he blew a raspberry, and slinked off into the shadows. 

Angela raised her hand to signal Noah to sit when he got up out of his chair. “He’s already gone, there’s no use in tracking him down,” she said with a resigned tone. “The best you can hope is that he returned to his cell.”

“One day, he’s going to pay.” Noah muttered with a scowl as he paid his bill.

*

_Three Days Later..._

The second that Peter walked into Sylar’s prison cell, he nearly gagged from the overwhelming smell of curry. With his hand to his nose to block out the smell, he glared at the offender in question. Sylar was leaning back at his chair with his feet propped up on his desk and quite happily slurping away at a takeout box of spicy brown curry. He paused and gave his most annoyingly smug look at Peter. “Is there something you need, Peter?” he asked in between bites of rice and potato, scooping up extra sauce with a piece of naan and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Are you always this disgusting when you eat?” Peter scowled. “Now I never want to eat curry for the rest of my life.”

Sylar rolled his eyes and made a face at him. “Fine, more for me. What do you want?”

“Stop antagonizing my mom, asshole. Putting live rabbits in her car overnight is not funny and kind of borders on animal abuse.” 

Sylar swallowed his bite of food and snorted. “Nope. I need something to do,” He took another piece of naan, dripping in the pungent and spicy curry sauce, and stuffed it into his mouth. “And you totally thought it was funny at first,” he said smugly in between chewing. 

“Fine, but it got less funny the more I thought about it,” Peter gritted his teeth and mentally cursed Sylar’s lie detection, because it was true; he did think it was funny at first, but the longer he thought about it, it wasn’t as funny as he thought. That was his problem with Sylar nowadays: sometimes the things he did at the expense of others was downright hilarious and then wrong upon a second thought. “That still doesn’t give you the right to do that to her. Now she’s going to junk the car because of all the rabbit shit.”

“Boo hoo hoo,” Sylar rolled his eyes as he polished off the last of his curry and plopped his feet back onto the floor. “Rabbits pooped all over her car and now she’s hauling them off to animal control and junking the whole thing. I’m sooooooooo hurt.” 

Peter glared at him. “Not a fucking right.”

“No, it’s a privilege,” Sylar retorted as he picked his teeth with a toothpick. “She earned those rabbits. Besides, I was feeling nice and left them and the turtle alive with a carrot and a crack in the windows.”

“Turtle?” Peter blinked. “What turtle?” Angela never told him about a turtle. Where did the asshole get the animals anyway?

Sylar's smirk grew wider. “Oh, Mommy or Claire didn’t tell you? Noah Bennet’s present was a turtle.”

Peter gaped at him. “Seriously?” 

"I took pictures," Sylar pulled out a phone, looking extremely proud of himself. 

"You're not supposed to have a phone."

"So?"

And at that moment, Peter gave up in trying to talk to him any further and put his head in his hands in resignation. "All right, let me see," he said, against his better judgment. "I'm going to regret this."

"I promise I'll leave your mother alone," Sylar replied, flipping the phone open. Peter looked at him skeptically. "For the time being, of course. No promises on Bennet, though."

_Good enough for now_ , Peter thought to himself as he tried to keep a snort down. Damn it, Sylar.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Sylar-lite chapter, in which Sylar is actually innocent of the charge lobbed at him. He's still an asshole, though.  
> Partially inspired by House and Wilson's chicken bet.

When Peter arrived at the Primatech facility, he found Bennet standing by the elevator with his gun out and the look on his face was that of sheer aggravation.

"Whoa,” Peter said, holding his hands up as if to avoid getting shot by mistake. "Can we put the gun away?" Bennet's gun being out was usually never a good thing.

Bennet glared at him and gritted out, "Sylar," as he re-holstered his gun.

Peter sighed as he rubbed the bridge of his nose as they stepped into the elevator. "What did he do this time?" It always came down to Sylar. The bastard had a knack for needling them in the stupidest but effective ways. Even in jail, he was always up to something.

"I got a report from one of the labs that they found a bright red rooster in one of their elevators. Another lab spotted two more chickens running around and squawking. No one is stupid enough to pull something like that except for him."

Peter snorted and then coughed when Bennet glared at him again. "Sorry." Bennet looked like he was still sore over the turtle incident and Peter's reaction was apparently not helping. It was a good thing that Bennet had no powers because Peter was pretty sure that gun would have been aimed at his head for thinking that another dumb prank of Sylar's was funny. As they stepped out of the elevator and walked past the labs, Peter couldn't help but notice that the custodians were sweeping up feathers and other stuff from the floor. "I just saw feathers."

Bennet's scowl didn't drop. "They said it took them a while to catch them. It made a mess of the halls for a while."

"Obviously."

"He’s been nothing but a pain in the ass ever since he showed up here," Bennet said as he swiped their credentials at the checkpoint to access Level S, the facility wing where Sylar was being held. “He’s been harassing not just you and me, but also the research labs.” 

Peter could only sigh and rub the bridge of his nose as they neared the doors of Sylar’s cell. “But you know that we can’t do anything about it, Noah. He’s just going to keep it up until he gets bored and moves on to the next thing. Hell, do you know how many times he’s broken into my apartment just because he was bored? Guy’s at his worst when he’s bored. You can’t control that.”

Bennet sighed. “There has to be a way to keep him out of trouble.”

“Good luck with that,” Peter replied they passed through the first door of Sylar’s cell and neared the second one. “I just end up humoring him until he goes away on his own.”

With a swipe of Bennet’s card, the door to the cell opened and there was Sylar, curled up in bed and snoring lightly. He had his blankets pulled up over him and his toes sticking out from underneath. Noah coughed loudly and rapped his knuckles against the bare walls. The lump on the bed shifted slightly and Sylar sat up with a yawn. He blinked and then scowled when he saw Peter and Noah standing in the door. “Aw, fuck. What do you fuckfaces want now?”

Noah scowled. “You mind telling us how you got live chickens into the facilities without security knowing?”

Sylar blinked and then snorted loudly.

“It’s not funny,” Peter interjected as Sylar silently shook with amusement. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but there are chickens going crazy around and shit like that is usually it’s your fault.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Sylar admitted with a shrug after catching his breath. “But I didn’t do it this time. I’m impressed, though. Who’d have thought to smuggle in live chickens to roam around?”

Bennet glared at him. “No one else is stupid enough to pull something like this but you.”

“All the more reason I didn’t do it,” Sylar replied. “It’s too simple. Smuggle in some chickens and let it run loose? Please.” He then added, “I only care about the birds when they’re about to be eaten; preferably deep-fried.” He shrugged when the death glares from Bennet and Peter got more pointed. 

"Would you be serious for once?" Bennet snarled. “There are several goddamned chickens running around here and you're the obvious culprit.”

Sylar rolled his eyes again. “I am being serious. I didn’t do it. I know many things, but handling live birds is not one of them. You sure it wasn't one of the idiot interns you guys hire?”

“But rabbits and turtles are?” Peter replied skeptically. When Bennet narrowed his eyes at him, Peter sheepishly scratched the back of his head and indicated a finger at Sylar. “He showed me pictures.”

“Now that was funny,” Sylar chimed in. “Chickens peck and make too much noise. Besides, before you two had rudely interrupted my nap, I didn’t do anything else today but break out for a McDouble for lunch than come back to bed to sleep it off.”

“You sure know how to make your jail time worth living,” Peter deadpanned as Bennet took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Junk food and sleeping. That’s a great way to spend your life sentence, Sylar.”

“Considering that they’re the only things I’m allowed to do that apparently won’t get me shot at or give our dear friend Noah here an aneurysm, it’s a fucking boring life sentence,” Sylar retorted. “You know better than anyone that I don’t like being bored.”

Bennet’s eyes narrowed again. “And that’s all the more reason I need to know that the labs are going crazy over some birds is your fault to begin with.”

“And I’d agree with you if I actually did do it, but again, I didn't do it,” Sylar yawned. He then added, “Frankly, you’re wasting everyone’s time here and you know what? Sometimes, it’s not always my fault when things go wrong. I’m just saying, maybe you're better off looking for answers somewhere else. I’m going back to sleep.” He flicked the door to his cell open and pointed to the open hallway. 

The scowl on Bennet’s face didn’t leave as Peter gave a resigned sigh and pulled Bennet along by the arm. Sylar curled back up into bed as the door to his cell slammed shut after they left. “It’s no use getting anything out of him, Noah,” Peter said as the echo in the hallway dissipated. “Hate to say this, but I’m actually starting to believe that he’s telling the truth that he had nothing to do with it.”

Bennet was still fuming, though. “That son of a bitch did it, Peter. I can feel it. Just because you’ve been inside of his head doesn't mean you know exactly what he's going to do. You know as well as I do that Sylar is unpredictable and that is exactly along the lines of what he could and what he would do."

"All the more reason for me to believe that he didn't do it," Peter replied. "You just said that Sylar is unpredictable and that this is something that he would do. Sylar, just to spite us, wouldn't do it. Remember what he said? It's too easy for him and he’s right. Something like this is below him and he was behind the air horn incident at the governor’s a few months back.”

“I knew it,” Bennet muttered under his breath. “Okay, say I believe you and that Sylar really didn’t do it. What do I do now and who’s the culprit?”

“Maybe it was an intern, like he said,” Peter replied and then he checked his watch. “Look, I got to go. I came here for something else and I’m running late. I’m sure you’ll get to the bottom of this. I’ll see you later.” With that, he gave a friendly pat to Noah’s shoulder and ambled down another hallway. 

The scowl didn’t leave Noah’s face, but Peter did have a point about giving Sylar the benefit of the doubt at least once. He didn’t like the idea, but if Sylar had been so emphatic about his lack of involvement and Peter was starting to believe him, all Noah could do besides blaming Sylar was at least give the idea a glance over. He didn't know how right he was.

It wasn’t until he ran over the security camera footage as well as registration logs and deeper questioning, that Noah learned that the chickens were the result of an inter-departmental prank war that had spiraled out of control. Noah took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Great, now he not only has to clean this mess up (and suspend the offenders for a week without pay), but also, much to his chagrin, apologize to Sylar. He made a mental note to consult Peter later on what would constitute an appropriate apology bribe. 

Son of a bitch.


End file.
